“It was the concept of a public service mission that attracted me to the army. And direct customer contact has always appealed to me.” So the move from uniform to energy was a perfectly natural one for this graduate of the Saint-Cyr military academy. Now working in a management support role at ENEDIS GRDF, he also heads up his own recruitment and talent development company.

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Committed to public service on all fronts

So it turns out that you can be a trained soldier, run your own business AND manage the performance of metering devices at GRDF, an ENGIE subsidiary. Cyril Lepetit is the absolute proof.

"What I like most about my work is implementing technical innovations in a constantly changing sector.”

Supervising specialists

Let start from the beginning. After three years' training at Saint-Cyr, France's foremost military academy, Cyril chose to specialise at the Ecole d’Application de l’Infanterie (an infantry academy). He went from mission to mission in Germany, Belgium, Djibouti and Guyana, before taking command of a combat platoon of 30 soldiers in the armoured infantry. For two years, the pace was unrelenting, with intervention and assistance assignments on multinational integrated systems, including in Kosovo and as part of the Vigipirate initiative, France's national security alert system. After this intense experience, Cyril changed career path, but not his ideals: "What appealed to me in the army was the concept of public service. I was always attracted by the relationship with the customer." In the hope of moving closer to Paris, he successfully applied for a job as Deputy Customer Technical Manager at ERDF-GRDF: "Like in the army, my mission was to supervise specialists." Cyril managed 80 customer technicians and supervisors, oversaw the completion of customer "rounds" and helped to optimise intervention and processing systems.

Three years later, he seized an in-house opportunity to try his hand at cross-functional management, by taking a job as Environment and Sustainable Development Project Manager. His new role: to support and coordinate the environmental initiatives of the various ERDF-GRDF agencies.

A step ahead

An innovation enthusiast, Cyril returned to education and completed an Advanced Master's degree in "Innovation & Entrepreneurship" at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP). Following on from this specialisation, he created the company Origamix which, with the aim of "revitalising recruitment", designs and delivers games used to identify the best talent. In parallel, he took up a new position in Performance Support at GRDF and joined Group's pool of intrapreneurs: "This programme is designed to help certain employees, who have a project in mind, to develop their idea, in particular during the special "bootcamp" days organised by the Group." Cyril loves the startup spirit that drives this network. "This is a tremendous opportunity for intrapreneurs, especially those who are lucky enough to see their project incubated within the Group and can therefore benefit from the credibility and customer base that ENGIE has to offer.”

A hive of technology

Today, Cyril manages the performance of a natural gas and electricity metering agency operating across the entire city of Paris. "My assignments range from the production and dissemination of metering quality indicators, to coordinating specific actions associated with meter accessibility or relations with major clients, as well as recruiting and managing teams, primarily made up of service providers." It is a cyclical business, which requires a lot of perseverance. Meters are read twice a year, and the rest of the time is spent continually improving the process. For this, Cyril can rely on a team of forty technicians, with very different careers and backgrounds: "I love that I get to spend every day with this friendly and dynamic team. There is a real sense of diversity within the agency, and that's what makes it so great. Among many others, we host people from return to work schemes run by the City of Paris, and others on temporary assignment. Half are women, including the agency manager and two out of three supervisors.”

A business looking to the future

With the arrival of Gazpar, GRDF's smart networked meter, new methods and tools are emerging in the metering business, such as mobile access terminals and new smartphone apps. Transformations which, according to Cyril, require great adaptability: "What I like most about my work is implementing technical innovations in a constantly changing sector.”

When considering his medium-term career prospects in the ENGIE Group, Cyril talks about the development of new business: "I would be very interested in going back to the beginning, breaking down barriers, testing different solutions, seeing some succeed and others fail.”

An entrepreneur at heart, he is very fond of a saying of the philosopher Henri Bergson: "Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought." This philosophy is also a running theme in Cyril's pastimes. He plays amateur rugby as part of the Fédération Française du Sport en Entreprise. "I like the atmosphere of the sport and its values, such as commitment, respect, contact, and sportsmanship." He also volunteers for Protection Civile Paris, where he contributes through humanitarian outreach patrols or as reinforcement for the prefecture during demonstrations and major events. Also qualified in water safety and rescue, he particularly enjoys his role as a first aid vehicle driver, which requires real, long-lasting skills. "As part of this role, I receive continuous training from firefighters and EMS.”

One thing's for sure, this multi-talented guy has plenty more to offer!